A Longitudinal Analysis of the Linkage between Suicide, Unemployment, and Marital Dissolution

A recent study by Stack, using states as the unit of analysis, found that divorce is significantly associated with suicide, even after controls for other related variables are introduced into the model. However, the previous findings are flawed because they make individual-level inferences from aggr...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of marriage and family 1984-11, Vol.46 (4), p.853-859
Main Author: Wasserman, Ira M.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Approximation
Divorce
Divorce rates
Divorce/Divorced
Kinship
Suicide
Suicide rates
Suicide/Suicides/Suicidal
Unemployed/Unemployment
Unemployment
Unemployment rates
Variable coefficients
War
Citations: Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:A recent study by Stack, using states as the unit of analysis, found that divorce is significantly associated with suicide, even after controls for other related variables are introduced into the model. However, the previous findings are flawed because they make individual-level inferences from aggregated data and are unable to control for lagged effects because of the use of cross-sectional data. In order to explore further the linkage of divorce and suicide, this study assumes that divorce is a social process, and considers how it influences suicide in the period from 1964 to 1977, controlling for variations in unemployment, another social process that significantly influences suicide. To analyze the data a multivariate time-series model that controls for seasonal effects, autocorrelation, and lagged effects is employed. The findings demonstrate that, even after controls are introduced, the divorce rate explains variations in the suicide rate. The results suggest that the kinship system is being greatly altered and that this change is decreasing the regulation of the individual ego and increasing the propensity toward suicide.
ISSN:0022-2445
1741-3737
DOI:10.2307/352533